Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s dark superhero satire comic book, ‘The Boys’ was first published in 2006, with its final issue arriving in 2012. Eric Kripke, who previously created ‘Supernatural’ and is one of the minds behind the live-action adaptation from Amazon (along with Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg), recalls meeting with Ennis early in the development process and that they discussed their approach to the TV series as “what would happen if you combine the worst of celebrity with the worst of politics and how badly that would screw over the common man.” You don’t say.
As Kripke commented:
“[Ennis] predicted the world we are now living in. I don’t think the world’s improved… There’s been more than one situation where we’ve come up with a scene or storyline in the writer’s room and then something happened in reality that was crazier than the story we were pitching. So, we’ve had to erase stories ’cause reality outdid us in how insane things are.”
‘The Boys’ centers on a rough and tumble group of operatives whose job it is to police the world’s superhero population, who are pristine champions in the public eye, but disgusting, destructive, hedonists who always get whatever they want, behind the scenes.
But the crazy, over-the-top violence and demented humor from the comics will still be present. In that way, the series works on two levels.
As Kripke continued:
“If you just want to watch a shocking superheroes-behaving-badly show, you can. If you want to get connected to the characters, you can. And then there’s also a lot of satire and commentary on the world we’re living in, on celebrity culture, on corporate culture, on where celebrity intersects with power and politics to the disadvantage of the general public. The superhero metaphor turned out to be endlessly durable the more we explored it.”
Were you a fan of the original comics? How do you feel it reflects today’s society?
‘The Boys’ arrive on Amazon Prime Video on July 26th.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
